I recognized this condition right away. I have suffered at the hand of those who suffer from Acyrologia. Yes it happens in other languages too.

When I am on the stand or in a deposition and I am sight translating a document in Spanish out loud in English, I am following the word sequence of whatever is written to be able to process the translation correctly. And when the words in the document stop making sense, I am halted in my flow. What usually happens then is the quizzical looks and even an objection- directed at me and my interpretation of which I am innocent.

And no matter how funny the words sound, we are not allowed to laugh, as per our regulations. Even if everyone else in the courtroom is laughing.

So this is not just the result of untrained translators or online translation apps, but people writing without proofreading. So, now attorneys and Judges can put a name to this condition.

So it was a relief to know there is a condition with a root cause and behavioral symptoms of the author of a source document that causes difficulty in my work. Now maybe if they can come up with a cure.

This description starts serious and then gets funny. See if you can count the malapropisms. But the truth is, a lot of us legal translators on a regular basis see this in the most sensitive of documents.

Whether you are speaking to an audience of three or three thousand, you want to be taken seriously. In an interview, an interrogation, questioning a witness in a deposition, addressing a jury or even on a first date, you want to make the right impression. You want to be believed and you want to hold the attention of your audience. You can’t rely on the content of your message alone. You also have to rely on your delivery skills.

I’ve become very aware of how a speaker’s message is distorted by interruptions such as “uh” and “um”, because my simultaneous delivery of the words spoken is also interrupted. If the statement is evidence, I see first hand how it is perceived and accepted or not by the listener.

If you are filling their ears with “uh” and “um” and “eh”, most people will quickly tune you out.

This the message you are sending:

You don’t know what you are talking about.

You are making it up as you go along.

You are not familiar with the subject enough to speak continuously.

You have to throw in words to your sentence as fillers.

But worst of all, you are telling the listener that you don’t care about what you are talking about.

(So why should anyone else care?)

The solution is easy. By yourself, practice making a point that you would in a short casual conversation. As soon as you catch yourself saying “Uh” or ‘um”, start over.

Replace every “uh” or “um” with a silent pause. Keep repeating the same point until you do not interrupt yourself with either a pause or an “uh “or “um”. This will give your brain the practice of speaking without theses interruptions.

Now, move up to a prepared statement and follow the same routine, without reading it word for word. Add convincing body language and you are ready to fly, nonstop.

Judges have taught me that you have to know the subject matter you are listening to and then you have to know what you are listening for.

Judges are charged with following who is speaking, what is said and how it is said while making sure the Rules of Civil or Criminal Procedure are followed. That means they are listening to everyone speaking and applying the basis of their role and their words throughout the litigation process.

When it is a bench trial they are going to rule on the evidence presented. So, they apply their knowledge of the law and precedents in such cases.

That is a lot of knowledge to keep up to date. It is also a lot of filters to keep in place.

Patience

Judges have taught me to evaluate a situation and the intent of a person who is disrupting a proceeding before reacting.

There will always be participants in a trial that have no clue about courtroom protocol or rules of the judiciary. Sometimes first time lawyers fall into that category. It is difficult to fulfill your responsibility when the smooth flow of order is upset. Just three words will exemplify the full range of possible tests of patience: Pro Se Witness.

Realizing a Passion to Serve

Judges have taught me to pull the curtain away from the somber rituals and courtroom décor and know the history of the purpose of service in the judicial system.

When you look at the history of the development of our judicial system, you learn the depth of the value for such service. If you take the time to consider each participant, from Bailiff to Court Reporter, from Interpreter to Lawyer, you will realize that we are all walking a road paved with hard work and dedication to justice. I truly enjoy that honor.

There is such a thing as a credible apology. I have seen it given, heard the words and witnessed the very moving acceptance. I saw this happen many times. So I have compared what I witnessed to the thousands of non-credible apologies that fall flat. I broke down all the aspects and preparation performed to create a credible apology. The Receiver of the apology will benefit from preparation for hearing and deciding how to react to an apology.

In my line of work, the biggest obstacle of most apologies I see is that the apologizer is prohibited from admitting guilt. I am a forensic foreign language linguist in the judicial and law enforcement fields. My clients, top lawyers, detectives and mediators clear that hurdle with this same process which also works for apologies in your personal life.

You may not be able to accept or benefit emotionally from an apology where the Giver has not admitted guilt. And that is not only understandable, it is your right to not accept an apology. If it shows that the Giver recognizes how you can feel the way you do and that you both have an analogous view of the event and offers regret for the outcome that will take space in the void of not hearing anything at all. Focusing on expectations that the Giver will say exactly what you want to hear sets you up for disappointment. If the giver of the apology is in a position of power, lives a sheltered existence and/or has a large ego may have no experience being wronged in such a way as you were. That type of person needs to be enlightened before they can have empathy.

Part One: Empathy Development

Start with finding out what you don’t know. Why do they feel they did nothing wrong? This will take research and investigation on your part.

·Define and qualify “wrong” in their terms not yours.

·Know that the Giver will approach the wrong as qualitative, not quantitative.

·Know that if the Giver personally committed the wrong then it is a personal event now in his or her life also.

·Know that if the Giver is a representative or head of the company that committed the wrong that all participants will know about the apology.

The Receiver of the apology should be able to reiterate the POV of the Giver comfortably in their own words.

Part Two

·Spend the time needed to get comfortable hearing about what stopped the Giver from avoiding or impeding the event from taking place.

·Acknowledge the level of difficulty in making such an apology for this specific person.

Part Three

·Know that you need to acknowledge the apology. But you get to decide if or if not you will accept it.

·Don’t expect reparations or amends as a part of an apology.

·Acknowledge the change being made to bar such an incident ever happening again.

Not everyone will apologize, even when facing imprisonment, the destruction of their career, or an established corporation. Many times I’ve seen representatives of Fortune 100 businesses apologize for their role in events to the level of the death of a loved one. And the accepted apologies diffused potential devastation. An apology takes preparation, for both the Giver and Receiver.

The tasks for the Receiver are outlined in a separate blog post.

In my line of work, the biggest obstacle of the apologies I see is that the apologizer is prohibited from admitting guilt. I am a forensic foreign language linguist for the judicial and law enforcement fields. My clients, some of the best lawyers, detectives and mediators clear that hurdle with this same process which also works for apologies in your personal life.

Tasks of the Giver

Part One: Empathy Development

Start with finding out what you don’t know. What do they feel you did wrong?

·Define and qualify “wrong” in their terms not yours.

·Approach the wrong as qualitative, not quantitative.

·Spend the time needed to get comfortable hearing about the Receiver’s circumstances that led to their sensitivity.

·Take special steps to assure both the credibility of the wording and body language if a public/media statement will be made.

The giver of the apology who is in a position of power, lives a sheltered existence and/or has a large ego will need to work out the apology in a setting with only a few people who are not subordinates.Such a person may have no experience being wronged in such a way, so it will have to be introduced and explained in a non- judgmental way.

Others can realize what was done “wrong” from the POV of the Receiver with a simple explanation.

Then discuss and explore facts that support or negate the possibility of an exaggerated baseless claim. The giver should air those out and resolve concerns so they don’t seep into the apology. If an apology is warranted you can apologize for what is based on facts.

The Giver of the apology should be able to reiterate the POV of the Receiver comfortably in their own words.

Part Two: Create the Apology

·Outline how the actions aided or contributed or caused the impact suffered by the Receiver.

·Demonstrate these by describing the incident scenario without said actions and note the different and more desirable result.

·Practice eliminating justification for your actions and replacing it with optional behaviors or processes.

·Practice eliminating expressing self-defense and replace it with the responsiveness of the apology.

Part Three: Delivery

Display proper body language that are naturally indicative of sincerity.

The timeline of a credible apology.

·Start with relating the incident, factually without adverbs or adjectives. This shows that there is a mutual familiarity of the event.

·Express the role/actions in the incident.

·Acknowledge the impact on the Received.

·Express regret.

·Finally express the change being made to bar such an incident ever happening again.

·Express appreciation that they gave you the time to apologize.

Scope of Regret

The Giver will have to regret their actions and the impact of those actions. When damage is more than emotional, do not simply express regret for how the Receiver feels.That is not an apology it is a rude deviation and it eliminates any perception of regret.

Your first contact should be a welfare check on your clients’ wellbeing, not a search for a paycheck.

The truth is I am writing this in response to a LinkedIn Connection from Georgia who messaged me asking me to help her find paying work here, in Houston, in light of the storm. I still had five feet of water surrounding my house and was stranded. Power came and went. Rescues of my own neighbors and friends were being conducted by people who came in from all over the country. The death toll was slowly rising with the water. I was stunned at her insensitivity and ignorance. Then I realized I can only do something about the latter.

Start with What You Don’t Know. It’s about what people are facing.

You have never lost your house to a flood. You have never been rescued by a helicopter from your roof or been evacuated. You have never seen your house or office with feet of water in it and you have to clear it out now before more damage sets in. You have never had your company close either indefinitely or for over a week due to something your boss has no power over. The people you are calling are living this reality.

Businesses are all codependent. One may be up and ready to start work but stopped by raw materials or services they need not being accessible. Transportation will be hindered. Banks and other essential programs may be off line. Infrastructure may be damaged. There is a chorus of “No”, “You can’t” and “We don’t know when.” that we in Houston are hearing every day now.

When a business can open, they have to count on their employees. And they have to concern themselves with how these people fared from the flood. Can they get there? Did they lose their car in the flood? Are the streets on their route flooded? Can they get gas? Can they perform their tasks at work? Are they struggling emotionally in the turmoil? Are they preoccupied with losses at home? In Houston today, you cannot find anyone unscathed from Hurricane Harvey so Houstonians have little else on their minds.

That is what is on the minds of the people you contact. So read up on that kind of experience before you contact them.

Communicating in the new language “Houstonese”

We are all speaking a new language here and you should learn it before contacting your Houston clients. You start by asking whomever answers the phone with “How are you and your family?” And then you listen. Acknowledge tragedies with sympathy and losses with encouragement and support. Ask how their company is faring. Don’t even try to compete with your own close calls or extended comparison of an event unless you live in Houston or surrounding communities.

Don’t spend too much time on the phone. We all have five times the responsibilities today that we had two weeks ago.

Don’t ask what you can do. When tour clients answer the questions above, you will learn what they need and what you can do. Being familiar with their services means you are a step ahead and can see the gaps that you can fill.

Now for the sticky part. Offer help that is free. Volunteer your services. If these words sent a shockwave through you, you don’t speak “Houstonese”. I am practicing what I preach. I am interpreting for free all client contact being made by my client law firms who are reaching out to their Non English speaking clients.

Show Business Kindness. If you have a standing contract with a Houston company then offer to delay invoicing, or lower your fees for a period of time.

If you have contract labor in Houston, make advance or early payments on their services.

If you are a national agency please consider the Houston labor pool first. We are ready to work and as survivors we are going to give you peak performance.

Houston will come back stronger, more financially dominant and vibrant. We will be a prominent source of work and top paying jobs. You will be remembered for what you do and how you communicate now.

As I write this, at home in Houston, Texas in the middle of Hurricane Harvey, I am trapped at home surrounded by feet of water encircling my house.

But I am safe, the house is prepared, no water is getting in and I have power. So I will write and tell you the interesting phrases and terminology I hear throughout this five day event. You may be interpreting it for other media, or you may be hunting for expressive terms for your own creative writing, forensic writs and communications or you may be a terminologist. Full disclosure: some tongue in cheek humor has found its way into my writing.

Rain event– I heard this a lot the first day. And yes, Harvey started out as that but then the rain became a flood and then spawned many foods. A “Rain Event” is used in a comparative sense to describe a weather storm event in which rain is predominant. The comparison is to the other damaging elements such as high wind, tornados, storm surge, and flooding.

Lengthy wait. Waiting for drinking water, gas for your car, waiting on a freeway for the water to go down at your exit or in line at grocery stores finally open after three days in a hurricane is subjective. This term was used to describe waiting in line to check out at a grocery store as 2 hours by one person and 5 hours by another. People called it a lengthy wait when they waited -overnight- on a high point of a freeway before they could get off the freeway.

Mandatory evacuation. You have to leave. City officials and law enforcement get involved.

Tornado Watch A watch is issued when conditions are favorable, for example, either for a severe thunderstorm or tornadoes.

Tornado Warning Warnings mean that severe weather is imminent. It is on you now.

Cabin Fever This is restlessness because you can’t leave a location your home or a shelter. It can lead to dysfunctional or really useful productive behavior. It also leads to being Slap Happy and writing great comedy and inventive games. Another relative term is Stir Crazy.

Shelter In Place This means stay where you are. I think this term is problematic because you could be under an overpass or in your car on a highway in a dangerous storm. So I highlight the emphasis on Shelter- you need to be sheltered by your location and don’t be wandering around.

Stay Safe. This is the universal pleasantry uttered by people who are not themselves facing any form of risk, danger or inconvenience.

Impassable Roads. Your car will not and should not get through. They really need to replace this word with more of an impacting visual term: Totally Blocked or Walled Off. The reason I say this is we had several people drive into areas declared Impassable and they drowned in their cars.

Trapped. I have learned that you can be trapped in a bad place or in a good place. So the word is grounded on the location being safe and not the lack of freedom or confinement. I feel lucky to be “trapped” in a flood water free home with power compared to being trapped in rising water in a car or in your house.

To Underestimate. This is constantly being used to describe the supposed thinking of people who drove into high water and didn’t survive. It is also being stated by people who got stuck on the flooded roads when a reporter catches up with them. My point is this, the root of the word is estimate, which should involve appreciable thinking. In so many ways this seems doubtful.

I have worked with some of the best attorneys and Judges in the nation. And I love watching them work. Sometimes I am lucky enough when on subsequent cases, they reflect back on a trial or a proceeding and they explain to me what they were doing and why. These lessons can be applied to any interaction, conversation or discussion you have .

1.The Value of Preparation

Knowing the answer before you ask the question gives you the opportunity to observe and learn about the person you are questioning and allows you to stay on top of the conversation.

2.Poise Under Pressure

People are more inclined to listen to you and believe you when you are calm and collected.

3.Integrating the rules into your standard routine.

The rules governing a Q&A are inherently agreed upon when opposing sides are brought together. Therefore, no matter how much disagreement there is, basing your statements on that point of agreement maintains a reminder of a potential agreement on more contentious points.

4.Patience

Never be impatient with a long-winded client or fact witness. If you wait long enough you will hear what you need to hear.

Take the time to word critical questions and run them by someone before you put them on the record and the respondent hears them. Having to restate or deflect objections is a sloppy dance that shows you as unprepared and out of control.

5.Balance client representation with judicial ethics.

Filter all the needs and requests of a client through the ethical rules that govern your work. It is only a matter of time before those rules will be the judge of your performance.

You want to learn from people who have achieved success on a path similar to yours. You can be encouraged by people who have faced and overcome obstacles that you fear. I learned a lot and I was very inspired and encouraged reading the in depth accounts of women who ultimately shaped my country, The United States. The lessons I learned from the trailblazers of the past were reinforced by the interviews of women who are trailblazing today. The toughest part of success is negotiating successfully. My gift to all women in business are these best negotiating strategies by a few women for whom negotiating became pivotal in American history. I quote directly from this fabulous book:

The sense of a contentious divide in the United States today concerns me. But I found comfort while volunteering to preserve historical documents at the Historical Document Room at the Harris County courthouse, (Houston, Texas). I came across this soul stirring entry in the minutes of the court, made at the end of the Civil War. These are the words of the Judge who had just received the order from the US Government mandating the overthrow of the Judges, Supreme Court Justices, Jurors and instilling new laws with which to rule on cases already filed in the court.

I could feel the anxiety of the court clerk as he wrote the words spoken by the Judge. I could imagine the agitation of the Confederate Judge who knew he was being unseated. I could imagine the sense of uncertainty of everyone in the courtroom who heard them. Events show that in order to fulfill this order the new Union Judge and the Confederate Judge worked together on the cases before the court to preserve the primary principles of our country. See how our justice system flows in the best and the worst times of history.

Book K. Minutes of the 11th District Court of Harris County, Texas.

Thursday, June 1, 1865.

At our early day of the present term, it was announced that an order would be made to call for trial at the next term, all civil cases filed since January 1862. And but since the events in the history of the country have transpired which render it unnecessary to limit the call to any particular portion of the docket.

It is therefore ordered that at the next term of the court, the civil and criminal docket will be called for trial and disposition in full as in ordinary times. This order is entered now that all parties in interest have due notice.

Judge James A. Baker. Presiding Judge of the 11th District Court of Harris County Texas.

The importance of the dates noted in this order:

January 1862 Texas seceded from the United States on March 2, 1861 and became a Confederate State on March 23, 1861, which was during the first term of the court under the Confederacy and the new laws under the Confederate constitution. The Judge of the 11th Court, Judge James Addison Baker was an elected Judge. His great-great grandson, James Baker III would be US Secretary of State.

June 1, 1865 The Civil War had already ended on April 1865. But Confederate General E. Kirby Smith, didn’t surrender in Galveston, Texas until May. A Proclamation of Peace between the US and Texas wasn’t declared until August 20, 1866 over two months after the court order. Judge James A. Baker was the last district court judge in Harris County to serve under the Confederacy. The court’s docket had remained inactive from 1861 to the spring term of 1865 because of the war, so only five criminal cases and no civil ones were tried in Harris County. In Texas, the transition from the Confederacy to Reconstruction was anything but “ordinary.” Slavery was overturned , federal troops occupied Texas, and for the very first time the constitutional rights of former slaves were protected by the amended federal constitution.

What followed :

In August 1865, Judge James A. Baker is removed and replaced with Judge Colbert Coldwell by the Military Governor of Texas, Andrew Jackson Hamilton. The minutes show that all sitting Jurors were replaced with Union loyalists. All of the Supreme Court justices were removed from office as “impediments to Reconstruction” and replaced by order of the occupying Union government.

Judge Coldwell spent six days a week, pouring over a docket of disputes filed over the previous four years of the Civil War. Together he and Judge Baker bridged the legislative crevasse between the old and new constitutions. All this took place in the aftershock of a nation that had been at war with itself.